Gear & Gadgets —

Google Play celebrates its first year with a few deals

Also this week in Android apps: A Humble Bundle and two new social networks.

If you have a time machine you can take advantage of the Breaking Bad offer, too.

It’s been a week of bundles and anniversaries in the Android app world. Today we’ll take a look at how Google is celebrating the first anniversary of its Google Play store and which games are being offered up in the latest Humble Bundle for Android. We’ll also take a peek at a photo-sharing platform targeted specifically at photographers and a video-sharing platform that stitches together the footage that you and your friends make.

Update: Although many of the deals were indeed splendid when we had initially written this post, it looks like Breaking Bad is no longer available for the low price of free. Some of the deals seem to still be available, however, like the free download for LCD Soundsystem. Looks like Google didn't get enough party favors for everyone at the party.

It’s been a year since Google re-branded its Android marketplace into the all-inclusive Google Play Store. To celebrate, Google is giving away some free stuff this week, including a download of the Breaking Bad pilot and tracks from LCD Soundsystem and The Velvet Underground. Hotels.com is also offering 10 percent off a hotel stay if you book through the Android app, while Fancy is giving away a $15 gift card for those of you who might need some new threads. As the gal who picks through “free stuff” boxes she sees on the street, I'm all in favor of the digital equivalent of that. Fair warning: it seems like these deals are limited to the end of the week.

Need some new games or music? Humble Bundle with Android 5 features six games for Android, including Beat Hazard Ultra, Dynamite Jack, Solar 2, and NightSky HD, and you’ll also get the soundtracks to three of these games. If you pay more than the average donation price, you can unlock Dungeon Defenders and all of its downloadable content, as well as the incredibly addicting but slightly aggravating Super Hexagon. You can alsograb their respective soundtracks. The games are cross-platform and work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Additionally, your donation will help organizations like Child’s Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

If Instagram just seems too reductive these days, 500px is a photo sharing service that caters specifically to professional photographers—and there are no filters. You can browse popular works or curate your own homepage by following your favorite photographers. You can also show off your camera kit in your profile, down to the collection of lenses in your photography arsenal. The service is free for up to ten uploads per week, and you'll get the ability to sell your photos in 500px's marketplace. You can upgrade to $20 a year for unlimited uploads and sets. There's also a $50 tier for the ultimate professional, which also includes analytics and a subdomain. The app on Android is mostly for eye candy, but you can upload your own photos through the website on your desktop browser.

If you’re out and about and into filming a video of your adventures, Vyclone will find other people filming at the same time as you and stitch those videos together. We can imagine that if you often travel in packs, using this app alongside your friends would produce a great video keepsake of your day out together. You can also choose whether or not you want to make the video public to all Vyclone users. Unfortunately, we were unable to get any friends to film along with us, and this application is still in beta for Android, but feel free to let us know what you think about it in the comments.

Florence Ion
Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.

Lots of free episode pilots on the play store's TV & Movie's page. Good idea to get people into series. It also requires you to have a google wallet account setup, which I think Google likes even more.

Seen a lot of improvement over the last year. It's getting better for sure. It's not quite to the level of Amazon or iTunes, but I look forward to see what they have in store

I didn;t have too much of an issue with the quality, actually which I thought was decent, when I downloaded a free episode of Downton Abbey and pilot episode of The Walking Dead. That's how a actually got into that show believe it or now. They throw a tease every now and then, which is cool. Some of the freebies are not worth even the time of day, but their are some that are worth considering a glimpse/look into..

Super Hexagon seems more appealing in a phone form factor. Even watching full-screen footage of the thing on my computer gave me motion sickness, but a nice small screen seems like it would be easier to handle.

Breaking Bad's pilot is no longer free; it tries to charge you $1.99 when you download it. Even the button on the "free stuff" website linked above now says "$1.99 buy" instead of "install" or "download."

Breaking Bad's pilot is no longer free; it tries to charge you $1.99 when you download it. Even the button on the "free stuff" website linked above now says "$1.99 buy" instead of "install" or "download."

Which is ridiculous. It should be free forever. Have these people never heard of hooking people by giving them the first taste for free? If a series is lousy this might not work, but that's not a problem Breaking Bad has, especially with its first episode.

Breaking Bad's pilot is no longer free; it tries to charge you $1.99 when you download it. Even the button on the "free stuff" website linked above now says "$1.99 buy" instead of "install" or "download."

I wrote the roundup this morning and there wasn't much of an indicator when this all was going to end. Looks like some of the stuff is still available. Will make an update ASAP.

There are a ton of pilots that are free, and some second-episodes. Why I don't know. But Rescue Me's "Gay" episode (that's the title) is actually the second episode, not the pilot. Don't care, downloaded it anyway. Firefly's first aired episode was not its pilot; maybe it's something like that.

I figure it's a nice way to preview a series. All pilots should be free. That's what they're made for. Well, to sell a network on the show, but if you're going to be buying in at $20-25 a season (or $40+ on Google Play), they should give you the first one for free. Sure, some people will torrent it, but those people are doing that already. For those hoping for an Amazon MP3 for TV shows, this will be a good gateway into paid TV for cable cutters, where Netflix isn't an option for whatever reason.

Not to sound ungrateful, but I'm getting the feeling from around the Net that this sale is generally unimpressive to most. The last big sale at least had a few of the popular apps at a huge discount. There was one a time or two before that that had nearly all the popular apps at a pretty big discount. Google needs to run these ever so often, especially right after the launch of a big phone... like the Galaxy S4. I mean yeah, they can do it around the Nexus launch, and a few people in third-world countries, and Europe where gas is up around ten bucks a gallon, might take advantage... but probably not... As opposed to the Galaxy S4 which, if the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 were any indicator, will be on all major US carriers, not just the big city ones and the international ones.

I really think Google need to take a look at Amazon's sales. Free app of the day means I go to their store every day to see what it is, and get fed advertising while I am there....and I don't mind. How often do I go to the play store? Pretty much only when my apps need updates. Look at their kindle sales, yes there are lots of books for 99p or less and they are often big titles. I pick up one and before I know it I have spent £20 on the author/series.

I looked at this Google play sale and said meh. Nothing very tempting, nothing very cheap, nothing any good free. Why not give away stuff for free if it gives the chance to hook someone- the financial risk is minimal. If I watch the first episode and don't buy anymore, you probably would not have sold it to me anyway. If I am wavering or don't know what it is about you could have hooked me for multiple series.

I really really really want to buy from Google Play but I can't. they won't accept credit card from my country, and their gift cards are rarer than Iridium. I have amassed a small fortune of apps off the App Store thanks to gift cards, as my credit cards are not good there either.

Ah, the drawbacks of living on a tiny Caribbean island.

Anyone know where I can get Google Play gift cards online, where they accept foreign cards (al la Amazon) or moneybookers, paypal etc?